There has been calls from within the student protest community for a vote on no confidence in NUS president Aaron Porter as the leader of NUS has been accused of ignoring last weeks national day of student protest and occupations. Since the NUS led march and media backlash over the minority of violence that erupted as some protesters smashed up windows and occupied the Conservative HQ.
The silence of NUS was to be expected as TNC had tired, unsuccessfully for the past three weeks, to gain an interview with Mr Porter to try and get NUS side but as of 8am today their PR team has still been ignorant to the real plight of the UK student. What is apparent is NUS is are in a fight for their own survival with students taking more action without their suport than before, what is at risk to NUS is student union’s who affilate to NUS at a cost of some £38,000+.
What these protest have shown is that the true face of NUS has become clear, they are only into this for their own political agenda and working for the students who they force to buy an NUS Extra discount card for £11 is the lowest priority for them. Students all over the UK are waking up to this very fact that NUS are not everything they claim and when it really counts they are not willing to support their students. So now in a very desperate attempt to stop any ‘civil war’ taking place within the student body Aaron Porter and NUS have backed down and have decided to support their students.
Should Aaron Porter face a Vote of No Confidence in his presidency over his handling of NUS support for the national student walk-outs?
Brighton Protest
An issue facing all the student occupations and protesters is the small minority of violent outburst that are an almost indelible part of the new, independent, student protests. In Brighton some 2000 protesters took to the street but very early on this became voilent with clashes with the police at a Vodafone shop, Poundland (which was trashed and closed) and a smashed window at a Tesco express on Queens Road. This resulted in a large than normal police presence at Brighton Pier who began using the same ‘Kettling’ practice as their London counterparts.
There was a huge crowd at the Pier and there where perhaps more observers than protesters but with the minority of violence that had already taken place the police where not taking any chances.
UCL
One of the biggest independent student protest has been led in the capital by UCL who’s occupation of the Jeremy Bentham Room last week as seen them gain international coverage from CNN and has even forced the President of NUS to come down and meet with the student. This was the result of a massive Twitter protest by the occupying students calling for a Vote of No Confidence in the NUS Leader.
UCL have perhaps, like many more in the country, handled their protest in the most dignified was. A non-violent and passionate protest the students of UCL have been some of the most proactive and constant in the UK which has ensured that their message and what they call for gains as much publicity and support. Though this is still a student focused protest their efforts have started to make their way to a much broader public which has aided more understanding and awareness of the students issues.
NUS
There is no doubt that NUS has lost this battle with student protest, occupations, and walk-outs taking place all without the need of NUS’s support. This, though an inevitable outcome for NUS, has shown how out of touch the ‘national student’s union’ is with the hundreds of thousands of students they claim to represent in the UK. One of the main reason why Porter has come to UCL, besides the fact that they have managed a bigger and more productive protest, is the 100,000+ students that have taken part in the national call to action. Porter told the UCL protesters:
“I want to be clear and unambiguous right now. Wherever there is non-violent student action, NUS should and will support that. What we are facing is utterly disgraceful and for us to engage in some kind of internal civil war is exactly what our opponents would want.”
He also agreed to support a list of demands made by the UCL occupation and that NUS would:
• Publicly support all student occupations on the frontpage of the NUS website and all available media.
• Call immediately for a new wave of occupations as a legitimate form of protest against fees and cuts.
• Organise financial, legal and political aid for all current and future occupations.
• Call a national day of action on the day of the parliamentary vote on tuition fees.
• Officially support any staff taking further industrial action on cuts.
Though at times, particually in Brighton, it is unclear as to how many where trouble makers and non-students to students this number is likely to be small but is also the group most likely to get all the media attention.
TNC hopes to have an interview with one of the UCL Occupiers later in the week.
Police Action
Are the police in the wrong? Should they have kettled the students in as they did last week?
This becomes a hard one to answer as there really does have to be some semblemce of ‘law and order’. If the police back down then the protest becomes nothing more than a riot and, rightly so, the public then ask why are the police not doing anything? Though many students protested peacefully during the national protest last week, in fact most of them did, we still have to accept that the police are there not only to protect the wider citizenry but to also protect the protesters. If you look at some of the images last week people seemed more keen to ‘be there’ than to try and get any form of message out about the cuts.
Not All Lost
What made these protest something more than the NUS led ones a week prior was the inclusion for the first time of the very students who are going to be paying the increased fees, the 16 year olds. Though some may have been younger, some tourist, and some just there to get in on the whole media attention, one image stood out that both shocked and stunned anyone who saw it. The irony of the image is that some 16 year olds where showing many of their older students how things are supposed to be done and to their credit they got their message out.
Dubbed the ‘riot girls’ by The Guardian several school girls held hands and protected a police van that had become a focus of a small angry student mob as well as the national news coverage. Yet this image tells a more beautiful and, to some extent, idealist, story that really gives the student movement more credit than it has had these past weeks. Locking hands the school girls could be heard telling the large student crowd to ‘stop attacking the van’ and also showed all those near the front goading the police that there is another, more dignified, way of protesting.
Talking to the BBC one of the Year 11 pupils said:
“If they smash it up, it just proves the point that teenagers are out here today for violence,” said one of the girls amid the chaos, her eyes darting left and right looking for the next vandal….If we let the government portray us as violent then there is no way they are going to listen to us.”
This truly is one of the most inspiring messages of last weeks protest and is one that the many thousands of students before next weeks national demonstrations should look at and take on board.
